Taking your car through the car wash and vacuuming the interior makes your car look clean, but there are things that escape your eye. Namely, bacteria. Would you eat a hamburger without washing your hands after visiting a public toilet?
Interior breeding ground of bacteria
Hopefully, you'll answer that question with ‘no’. Then it's odd that you do eat a hamburger while driving your car. Your car steering wheel is a breeding ground for bacteria, after all. Just like other places in your car that you regularly touch, such as the door handle, gear stick, your seatbelt, and the radio buttons. When did you last wipe those down with an antibacterial wipe?
Food waste
If, like us, you sometimes drive through the fast-food restaurant's drive-through, you'd best be regularly disinfecting the interior of your car. Bacteria thrive on the food remnants that end up on your steering wheel and other places in your car via your hands. When the temperature rises in your parked car during the summer, these micro-organisms multiply at lightning speed.
Most bacteria are harmless, but some can cause severe food poisoning. They don't just reside on your steering wheel and gear stick, but also in the fabric upholstery of your car seats and the floor mats. Vacuuming alone is not enough to get rid of these tiny disease carriers. But how do you clean your car hygienically?
Hygienic car wash
For the plastic surfaces in your car, such as your steering wheel, door handles and gearstick, it's best to use antibacterial cleaning wipes. You can easily keep these in your car and use them while you're waiting at the traffic lights. This will ‘extinguish’ the largest bacterial hotspots in your interior. Also, take a bottle of antibacterial hand gel with you to clean your hands after visiting a petrol station.
Don't forget your car seats and floor mats
Car seats can be cleaned using a carpet cleaner or a wet and dry vacuum cleaner, which you can rent. You can then clean your floor mats at the same time. Alternatively, you can also clean your floor mats ‘simply’ with water and cleaning soap. Incidentally, you can buy a new set of car mats for just a few tens of pounds. Finally, bacteria can also end up in your cabin filter and thus spread through the air. Therefore, replace your cabin filter every year or with every minor and major service.
Be honest: how often do you give your car a hygienic clean? And do you eat in your car? Or is eating strictly forbidden in your sacred cow? Let us know in the comments! At Adrem, you can always get a clean car in the Sittard region Rent!
